Library card drive kicks off for kindergarteners and first graders

While about half of San Franciscans have library cards, a drive beginning this week aims to get a card in the hands of every child in kindergarten and first grade in the school district by the end of this academic year.

Library card applications are being sent home with the 8,670 school district children, said communications director Gentle Blythe. Parents will also get a nudge to sign their children up during parent-teacher conferences this week.

In past years, San Francisco Public Library staff have promoted cards through classroom visits, but this is the first very coordinated.

The library brought the idea to the school district hoping to instill a habit of reading among students at the start of their educational careers, said Toni Bernardi, chief of children and youth services for the library.

Every school in the district has its own library thanks to the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which voters passed in 2004 to guarantee city funding for literary programs, sports and arts at K-12 public schools through 2015.

But city libraries are an important resource for students, especially when schools are closed over the summer, Blythe said.

San Francisco Public Library

School and library officials hope more Kindergarten and first graders will frequent libraries if they all have cards.

Administrators hope to have completed applications back from parents by the time students return from spring break the first week of April.

Branch libraries — which hold at least one program per week for the age group — will then issue the cards to schools in their neighborhoods.

“Hopefully we can bring the children to their library branch for a class visit as well,” Bernardi said. “So they have an opportunity to test-drive their library card.”